At the heart of every cancer journey is not just one person, but many. While carers provide support behind the scenes, they are also navigating the cancer experience themselves – often quietly and often intensely. They need support too.
What Carers Are Telling Us
1 in 9 Australians provides ongoing care to a loved one[1], and research consistently shows that carers experience significant impacts on their wellbeing. In Australia, informal cancer carers provide an average of nearly 29 hours of care each week, often alongside work, family responsibilities and financial pressure[2].
Behind every cancer diagnosis is a network of care, and carers often carry much of that responsibility. Caring can shift even the closest bonds, sometimes making them complex or fractious as roles change and emotions run high.
At the same time, carers often form strong connections with the professionals who support them day to day. When caring ends, so too can those connections, leaving carers to navigate not just the loss of their loved one, but a quieter, secondary grief. Many also carry the weight of difficult decisions made along the way, sometimes alongside guilt or blame from others.
Over time, this emotional load can take its toll. Deep fatigue is common, and some carers experience vicarious trauma, absorbing the distress of the person they care for as their own.
WATCH: Providing the Essential Support Structure Needed for Carers
CWS’s Whole-Person Approach to Supporting Carers
In 2024-2025, our carer membership grew by 35%, reaching a total of 117 carers. This year we continue to build on our strategic priorities, including strengthening how we recognise, value and support carers, while remaining responsive to their evolving needs.
What we hear, time and time again, is that carers want to feel seen, understood and supported in ways that genuinely make a difference to their day-to-day lives.
At Cancer Wellness Support, our focus is not about simply expanding services. It is about deepening recognition of carers within the cancer journey and strengthening the support services that are most effective within our model of care.
Sometimes that looks like counselling as a place to unpack the complexity of what they’re carrying. Sometimes it’s a yoga class as a moment to breathe, or a massage that offers physical relief from the tension they’ve been holding. Sometimes, it’s simply being in a room with others who understand, without needing to explain.
Our person-centred approach focuses on identifying individual needs and matching each carer with the therapist best suited to support them. Clients and carers can access support throughout their cancer journey, with services thoughtfully tailored to their needs.
WATCH: The Importance of Support for Carers
How We’re Expanding Our Carer Support
We know that connection matters. Carers consistently tell us that access to information, emotional support, practical help and the chance to connect with others in similar situations can make all the difference.
We are guided by the broader national direction that carers should be identified, respected and supported to maintain their own health and wellbeing while caring for others. Practical support, accessible information, emotional support and connection with other carers are consistently identified as key needs[4],[5].
Our work this year continues to build on these insights, as we provide affordable support for both clients and carers, strengthen referral pathways with partner organisations, and raise awareness of the vital role carers play through storytelling, education and advocacy.
We continue to collaborate with partner organisations, contribute to community awareness initiatives, and ensure carers are visible and acknowledged within our programs. By strengthening recognition and connection, we aim to support carers in meaningful, practical ways that complement existing services and reflect our commitment to whole-person care.
Carers are not on the sidelines of the cancer experience. They are central to it. This understanding is guiding our work as we continue to strengthen support for carers as an essential part of the cancer journey.
References
- Carers NSW. Facts about caring. Retrieved on 18/02/2026 from https://www.carersnsw.org.au/about-caring/facts-about-caring
- Gao, L., Bohingamu Mudiyanselage, S., Ugalde, A., Watts, J. J., Jongebloed, H., Thomas, S., Das, N., Lyall, A., Winter, N., Cowdery, S., McCaffrey, N., White, V., & Livingston, P. M. (2025). The hidden economic burden of cancer caring. Cancer, 131(14), e35970. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.35970
- Nic Giolla Easpaig, B., Newman, B., Johnson, J., Laidsaar-Powell, R., Sansom-Daly, U. M., Jones, L., Hofstätter, L., Robertson, E. G., Mears, S., Sattarshetty, K., Houweling, R. E., Edge, R., Cummings, J., & Harrison, R. (2025). What can we learn from the evidence of psychosocial support for carers of people with cancer and how do we advance our efforts? A meta-review study. Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice, 10.1007/s11764-025- 01802-8. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11764-025-01802-8
- Australian Government. National Carer Strategy 2024-2034. Retrieved on 18/02/2026 from https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-07/national-carer-strategy-2024-2034.pdf
- Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Supporting Carers Strategy 2022-2026. Retrieved on 18/02/2026 from: https://www.petermac.org/component/edocman/peter-mac-supporting-carers-strategy/viewdocument/582?Itemid=0
